There are great tools for working with Python on iOS, like Pythonista.

Based on all of this, Python seemed like a reasonable choice for getting started.

Anaconda (or not)

I started by installing Anaconda 3.5, which was a mistake for at least one reason. The Python community is split into two camps: those still using Python 2.7, and those who are using Python 3. It looks like Python 2.7 is the right place to jump in, since both the Flask framework and Pythonista still require Python 2. My goal is to work with Python 2, while writing code that is forward compatible with Python 3.

The second reason installing Anaconda may have been a mistake is that it’s just more overhead than I need as I’m getting started. I was immediately trying to learn both a new language and a new tool.

So I uninstalled Anaconda, and fell back to using the Python version that shipped with OS X 10.11. I began working through the tutorials at Python Programming Language, to get a grasp of the language.

Flask

Based on this Stack Overflow comment, it seemed like Flask would be a good framework for trying to build my URL redirection service. I worked through the installation instructions on the Flask website. They recommend using Virtualenv to handle the Python configuration, and setup was easy on the Mac: